13th and Lucky Marathon – Sony Ericsson in Raleigh

Yesterday, I completed my 13th and in many ways, most gratifying marathon in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Sony Ericsson City of Oaks Marathon.  I had just spent the last 6-7 days traveling over 10,000 miles, 8 flights and business meetings in Germany, Slovenia, UK, Paris, back to UK and then flights to Raleigh getting in around 430pm on Saturday afternoon.  I wanted to do this race to be able to visit with my good friend Mike (who works for Sony Ericsson) and to see him and their 10 month old son (Sebbie) who I had not seen before.  Him and Jackie were nice enough to pick me up from the airport (after picking up our registration packets that (Saturday) afternoon.

Here is a description of the course from the website:

Is the course hilly?

Yes, relatively speaking. Of the popular marathons (Chicago, New York, Boston, Marine Corps, etc.), the City of Oaks Marathon is most like Boston. It is not a flat course like Chicago and Marine Corps, and has more hills than New York. The course scenery varies drastically during the course, going from downtown Raleigh out to Umstead State Park (which is one of the best places to run in the area and has been featured in many running magazines, including Runner’s World).

We had a good pre-race dinner of Italian food with Sebbie and did some carbo-loading.

The morning of the race dawned beautifully in Raleigh with cool temps and clear skies.  Mike and I got up around 0500 and after some breakfast of bagels and bananas (and I had some extra granola bars) we headed to the course which started in North Carolina State University.  I’ve got my toque on because it’s pretty cold, but all the layers get peeled off before the race – down to running shorts and shirt (and shoes and socks of course!).

I was somewhat (er Very) worried about the race having flown all these miles and because headphones were banned during the race, so I would have to run with just the sound of my feet.

Mike and I ran the first 8.5 miles together (he was running the half-marathon) and then we split off and I had to run the next almost 18 miles on my own.  The key, as it turned out, is that we ran a pretty slow and steady.  We ran this first part in about 1:28, which equaled about a 10:40 pace, much slower than I would normally go out (and be slggish and tired later).  Mike was nursing some injuries and had not had the chance to do much training with work and travel and baby responsibilities of course.  Plus we enjoyed the time of running and talking together and it made the time go by quickly.

After we split off from each other, I picked up the pace and ending up talking to a young man Ben Jenkins, who was 30 and in the Army in Fayetville.  This was his first marathon (he had done a half before and had run 20 miles also).  We talked and ran for a long time and he really pushed me and got me going fast.  He had served two tours in Iraq already and we talked about that experience and his overall views.

The key for me was to try to knock down the running GPS times that gave overall pace on my watch down from 10:40 to 10:00/mile by the halfway point and somehow get near 9:30 miles overall by the end which would put me close to my PR – but it would require running mostly 8 and sub-9 minute miles during the hardest, hilliest stretches.

I made it to the 13.1 mile mark in exactly 2:11 which was the 10:00/mile pace I was shooting for.  And I kept passing runners.  And getting encouragement from bystanders about “looking good”.

After I needed to make a bathroom break around mile 14, I broke up with Ben and continued on my own.

Later several miles later, I saw him to into the woods ahead of me and after passing, I did not see him again unfortunately, but checked his time and he DID finish in a good time of 4:38.

The last half-marathon of the race, I just kept pushing and legs kept flying even without music.  I drank at most every station and had some pretzels.  Very few walk breaks, mostly all at the water stops.

I could see the pace clock going backwards to 9:50 and then to 9:40 (overall) and started doing calculations as to what the finish time could be.  One starts to play mind-games to estimate miles and times and push to those goals.  I got to 19 miles around 3 hours which would put 4:10 overall time into play.

The last hour flew by and I kept passing runners which is very satisfying.

I sprinted the last 1/2 mile through the finish line and the net clock showed 4:12:03, which was my second best time after Napa this year in 4:07:52, so just over 4 minutes off the pace.  But the most important were the following stats:

- I ran the first half in 2:11 and the second half in 2:01 – a Very Negative split.

- I finished in 350th place out of 750, and 13th of 34 in my age group. But:

- if you look at the results, not a single person finished above me who had a worse time in the 10k or 13.1 mile mark.  I ended up passing around 200 runners who had Better Times in the 10k or 13.1 mile portion and one of very very few in the entire race that had negative times on the second half.

There were tons of runners that had great first half split times of like 8:30 or so and second half times of 10:30, so that was very pleasing.

We had a great meal afterward and a well deserved nap in the afternoon.

And as I write this two days later, surprisingly little soreness.

OH and ALSO – I got up at 400am the next morning to leave Mike’s house at 0430 to get on 0600 flights to Washington and back to SFO arriving around 1130 the next morning (Monday) and was back in the office after showering by around 1400 – a little tired but none the worse for wear.  All in all, a great weekend!